Monday, March 27, 2006

This is peculiar news. The used up spacesuits of the International space station are being used as satellites and they are now in orbit.

The spacesuit is the satellite -- "SuitSat" for short.

The Russians were the ones to get this idea spark in their heads.

"We've equipped a Russian Orlan spacesuit with three batteries, a radio transmitter, and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power," says Bauer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "As SuitSat circles Earth, it will transmit its condition to the ground."

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Email is second only to the telephone in terms of the number of worldwide users, but it's nearly impossible to figure exactly how many emails are sent each day.

VeriSign (the exclusive registry for .com and .net domains) estimates that there are about 2.25 billion email queries per day. However, because of caching, email queries represent only a fraction of the number of emails sent. And VeriSign doesn't track many huge email-producing domains, such as those that end in .edu. So 2.25 billion is far below the actual number of emails sent every day.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

For those of you unfamiliar with the happenings in the Indian aviation sector, here is something.

The two of the major private airways in India, Jet airways and Air Sahara are becoming one and have come to an agreement for a sum of Rs.2300 crore. In this agreement Air Sahara is coming under the Jet airways.

But the news is that the deal maybe under threat due to the pending clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

An extension has been made on both sides by the airliners, to March 24 2006 as the deadline for effecting the transaction.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

The Boeing and Airbus are two of the biggest airliner manufacturers and they are each other's competitor. The Aircraft Interiors Expo 2006 exhibition is to be held next month and Airbus has a jaw dropper with the A350. This is the Airbus's answer to the Boeing 787.

Already the A380 interiors are spacious and extravagant, unlike any other airliner and now the Airbus company has another feather to add to its hat.

This is what the A350 chief engineer has to say:
“There are new lighting features and shaping in the cabin, we can project onto the ceiling whatever is appropriate for the mood required – for example the night sky or clouds etc."

Thursday, March 16, 2006

India's state owned airlines - Air India and Indian (Recently changed from Indian Airlines) are to become one soon.

The two airlines are big in their own ways and both offer international flights to various destinations around the globe. Though Air India owns the jumbos, Indian is a good source of revenue to the state.

Proposals were made to merge both airlines and it is likely to take place within 2006-2007.

The merger would create a major airline with 125-130 aircrafts. This is due to the increased competition from the private airlines in the India's aviation market.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

I did not know much about Raja Ravi Varma except, that he was a artist and that he was famous among artists until I recently read this article in Reader's Digest.

An excerpt from the article:
NO OTHER Indian artist blazed as many trails as Raja Ravi Varma. He was the first Indian to master perspective, the first to use human models to depict Hindu gods and goddesses, the first to make his work available not just to the rich but to ordinary people too. The immense popularity of his work also made this deeply pious aristocrat the first Indian artist to become well known — before him painters were largely anonymous.

Friday, March 10, 2006

The Airbus company has announced that it is going to stop the production of the A300/A310 airliners from july of the next year.

The company is going through a change and there is high demand for the new airliners from airbus like the A321, A330 and A350.

The A300 was the first wide bodied twin engine ever brought to the airline industry. The A310 followed it with the first two man cockpit in a wide body. These two aircrafts were the boosters for the airbus company.

The employees (150 in number) of the A300/A310 program, who produced one aircraft per month are being shifted to other programs.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The alphanumerical Passwords are easy for hackers to crack in and get information from the protected areas.

In recent days there are some spyware programs that can detect your password, remember them and then send it to its programmer - who ofcourse is going to misuse it in his favour.

A group of researchers have come up with a solution. Their system that uses one clear and easily recognizable image and another that is a highly pixilated, unclear version of the original.

When creating a new password or changing an old one, the system provides the legitimate user with the clear image. But during the authentication phase, the system shows the user the unclear image, along with a number of decoy images.

The legitimate user who should now be familiar with the image will easily detect the unclear image but the hacker cannot.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

June 10th 2006 will be a special day for the 10,000 (approximately) children who will get to fly with a volunteered pilot in their aircraft.

The free flight program conducted by the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) offers children in the ages of 8 to 17 a chance to fly in aircrafts, gliders, helicopters and even hot air balloons and blimps. Better said simply given a chance to be airborne.

These activities are also part of the effort to fly 1.25 million Young Eagles by EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2006, "The World's Greatest Aviation Celebration," which takes place July 24-30 at Wittman Regional Airport at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The Young Eagles program's chairman is Harison Ford, a well known actor (air force one) and an aviator. Their effort has to be applauded for their consistency, for the association has been doing this from 1992.

It is very much possible now. Thanks to the Booker prize winning author Margaret Atwood and her team led by Matthew Gibson.

Usually writers have to travel far and to many places at a stretch for signing events to keep up the relationship between the authors and their readers. This difficulty is eliminated now with the invention of a gadget called "LONGPEN". It is a remote controlled pen operated by mechanical arms.

The user can be on one side and the longpen can be placed anywhere in the world. Once the user signs in the electronic pad, the same is transmitted to the device and the mechanical arms reproduce the signature in the paper.

In fact its developers say, longpen can not only sign in papers, but it can sign in hockey bats, and work is in progress for making it sign in basketballs.

Its about time that we start writing our examinations from the comfort of our home.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Everybody Googles nowadays.
Searching recently got the second rank for the most used application in the internet, next to (what else) Email.
So here is a link that gives you handy tips for better searching using Google.

Note: There is a standard help link in most of the internet services that we use. Take a look into it and you can find much more options and tips for searching (for that matter anything).

Who were the first people to design and fly a successful practical airplane?
You know the answer, it is the Wright Brothers. Their successful 12 seconds flight sparked up the aviation industry.

This achievement is due to the Wright Flyer, the magnificent beauty for the aeronautical community.
The discovery channel's web portal has a nice interactive flash presentation of the Wright Flyer. A general view of the Flyer, a rotatable view and the innovations that led to the first flight are given in visuals. Also an extra section explains about the propellers in brief.

Note: It doesn't take much of your time.
Click below to go back to kill devil hills (1903) and see Orville Wright in the Flyer.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Here is a news about an aircraft stolen from the Tucson airport area in Arizona, USA.
A Cessna aircraft was stolen from its hangar on tuesday. The Police are on the lookout for the aircraft and the criminal.

Click the link below for more detailed news and the photo of the aircraft.
The police have given their contacts for report of any news about the stolen aircraft.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

This is kind of old news... But I came across it lately and can't resist writing about this...

The "Top Gun" airplane that Tom Cruise flew in...
Yes... the famous variable sweep wing fighter interceptor F-14 Tomcat is out of service from the US Navy. It had its last flight on February 8th 2006.
It has been replaced by the F-18 Hornet. The main reason for its replacement is due to high maintenance issues to keep it in operation.
The F-14 Tomcat was an icon in the US navy.People around the Aviation industry are unhappy due to this.

Have you used Mozilla firefox? the open source code browser?
If yes you will be knowing about tabbed browsing and how it is great for browsing the internet...

If not... you will know about tabbed browsing by reading this...

Also Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 that is about to be released implements this tabbed browsing along with other browsers such as Opera...

Yahoo is a huge company in the internet business and they have many services other than just mail... (which many of us are not aware about)
One of their great offers is Yahoo Toolbar...
Today yahoo has introduced its toolbar V6.3 for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above... It now has tabbed browsing just like in firefox...

Its great... I checked it out and it feels good to use it...
Check it out in the link below...